Zero Cottage | David Baker Architects

San Francisco CA | Completed

2013

Exterior view of Zero Cottage in San Francisco.

The WHY sign is part of the iconic 17 Reasons Why sign that used to be on top of a building at 17th and Mission streets. It is being saved for future installation in a public space.

Image Credit

Matthew Millman

Zero Cottage is an investigation of compact, sustainable urban development and a contemporary approach to living and working. The ZNE cottage is LEED Platinum and Passive House certified. It joins several other buildings on one site to make up Shotwell Design Lab, a creative compound in San Francisco’s Mission District.

Inside passage to Zero Cottage with a red, white and black mural on the right side of the wall.

The passage to Zero Cottage and Shotwell Design Lab was originally used to get horses to the rear yard stable. Now it features a 62 foot long mural painted by Mission Street Style artist Andrew Schoultz in 2009.

Image Credit

Matthew Millman

The cottage features a 712-sf living space set over a 430-sf workshop and pairs with an existing building to complete a flexible, mixed-use compound that includes a two-bedroom flat, a studio apartment, and a storefront community space.

The freestanding addition presented an opportunity to explore advanced sustainable design, construction techniques, materials, and technologies with a goal of achieving Passive House and Net-Zero Energy certification.

The cottage is certified LEED for Homes Platinum. It is the first Passive House-certified home in San Francisco and achieved the ILFI Building Challenge Net Zero Certification in 2014 after one year of actual use data. ILFI (International Living Future Institute) comprehensively evaluates buildings for certification in such categories as Growth, Energy, Rights to Nature, Inspiration & Education, and Beauty & Spirit.

Within the cottage, the residence sits atop the ground-floor workshop—currently used as a ceramics studio—which opens out toward the central shared yard. The compact home features an open-plan kitchen, office, and living room topped by a bedroom suite. Above, a vegetated roof includes vegetable planters, composting, solar electric generation panels, a passive solar hot water collector and storage system, and a passive solar monitor that provides access as well.

Exterior view of Zero Cottage in San Francisco at dusk.

Image Credit

Matthew Millman

Detail of the weathering steel facade at Zero Cottage in San Francisco.

Image Credit

Matthew Millman

Exterior highlights

The exterior metal siding is made up of mixed metal tiles connected by a custom stainless steel clip system designed by DBA. This system allows tiles to be individually removed and replaced, or otherwise moved around for effect. Three custom planter tiles fabricated from stainless steel hang from the same clips and can be relocated anywhere on the tiled elevation. One clear plastic tile serves as a window to reveal the batten and rigid insulation view.

Overall the tiles are mix of field metal fabricated locally from weathering steel, galvanized steel, and mirror stainless steel. The tiles are 12" wide by 17.5" high. Highlight tiles are made from industrial waste from the Zahner Company, the sheet-metal fabricator for many well-known buildings designed by star architects (for example, some deYoung Museum off-cuts are included).

The exterior siding serves as a “rainscreen”—a ventilated weather and UV barrier over rigid insulation and a water/air barrier.

Maple flooring salvaged from one of DBA’s adaptive reuse projects, the Pasta Factory at Tassafaronga Village in Oakland, was charred for use as exterior Shou-sugi-ban siding as well as being stripped and used as flooring inside the cottage. This charred wood siding is low-maintenance and resistant to insects, rot, and decay.

The first level of Zero Cottage, a workshop area.

The ground level is a studio space originally occupied by DBA_Workshop.

Image Credit

Matthew Millman

Interior view of the kitchen and dining area inside Zero Cottage in San Francisco.

The second level consists of the kitchen, dining and living room area.

Image Credit

Matthew Millman

Interior highlights

Interior materials are no VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds): For example, the walls are plaster with no paint; the floor is recycled factory flooring finished with pigmented flaxseed oil. The same wood is used for the exterior charred-wood siding. The bathroom tile is primarily Heath factory seconds.

Interior view of the living room and a woman climbing up metal stairs to the third level inside Zero Cottage in San Francisco.

Image Credit

Matthew Millman

Interior view of Zero Cottage from the second set of metal stairs looking down to the third and second floor.

Image Credit

Matthew Millman

Vegetated roof, with motorcycle tires as the planters on Zero Cottage in San Francisco.

Vegetated roof with motorcycle soil retainers and floating PV array.

Image Credit

Matthew Millman

Axonometric diagram showing location of uses at Shotwell Compound in San Francisco.

Zero Cottage, Shotwell Design Lab, StoreFrontLab, and Shotwell Garden Retreat are all part of the Shotwell Compound.

Image Credit

David Baker Architects

Shotwell Design Lab

The cottage continues the evolution of an urban site that predates the 1906 earthquake. The original compound comprised an upstairs flat set above a ground-floor grocery store, and additional living quarters in the rear yard.

In 2013, David Baker and Yosh Asato launched StoreFrontLab, a community-focused cultural initiative that gives the historic commercial space a new public purpose, rooted in the neighborhood’s contemporary culture. Over time, the flexibility of the compound’s components—Shotwell Design Lab—will support a wide range of uses and configurations.